First half obviously being the beginning all the way to the end of the MP Eva vs Asuka, with the second half going from Pre-instrumentality to the final scene of thr movie.

For me, while both were absolutely stellar, i lean a tiny bit closer to the second half due to third impact + Komm susser tod being one of my all time favorite moments out of any film to date. The lead up to it & the final scene's ambiguity also sealed the deal for me.

Oh god it's like being asked to pick my favorite child. I guess I'll just list off my personal pros and cons with both and try to come to a conclusion that way

25^1 AIR

Pros: The way AIR starts is brilliant to say the least. The bit of the telephone pole falling in the water perfectly mirror's Kaworu's fate, and with Shinji at the lake's edge, it isn't a stretch to assume that AIR takes place the day immediately following the final Angel's defeat, with Shinji staying by the water all night just thinking. In fact, this night may be when the first bit of ep25 takes place in Shinji's head (Is that why I killed him? Why did I kill him?). Shinji has been there so long that it's midday, the sun beating down and causing him to sweat profusely. We cut from this straight to the infamous hospital scene, another genius sequence. Shinji's Freudian Id has just about completely taken over, but there's still a civilized part of him, seeing as how he consciously locks the door. (This bit about Shinji's Id and it's connection to Asuka is super vital to later on, during my analysis of I Need You). What makes this sequence even worse is that there's not really a reason Asuka should be in a coma. The last time we saw her, she was just super out of it and depressed, not comatose. It's quite likely that Asuka was simply ignoring Shinji and pretending to sleep because she didn't want to deal with him. I assume she didn't snap to once she was rolled over because she had completely lost the will to. "I can no longer pilot. Piloting was my one strength. Therefore, I am worthless now. At least my body can give Shinji joy, that will give me a purpose."

From this frankly shocking scene, which does a fantastic job showing us just what a leap in tone AIR and I need You are from even the darkest episodes of Neon Genesis, we jump straight into a discussion between Maya, Hyuga, and Aoba in Terminal Dogma (or is it Central Dogma? I always get them mixed up, almost as much as I mix up Arael and Armisael). This rushed pacing, giving viewers no time to take in Shinji's actions, along with the tone and subject of the conversation, being literally stuck in HQ, gives off this very trapping, restricting feeling, and is something I've yet to see perfectly imitated in any narrative to date. Then there's more exposition and explanation from Misato in her car, she hacks into NERV's super top secret files and learns the truth about Evangelions and likely a ton of other stuff, and then the worst part of AIR starts.

SEELE's attempted invasion of the MAGI is just Iruel again, it's just straight up Iruel. The only interesting thing about this sequence is that up to this point, there's been absolutely no background audio except for ambience, so the quick kick of the first track in the film makes it all the more intense, but that's nullified and made pointless, because we already know that Ritsuko can hold it off.

Then comes the real invasion, nothing much to say about this except for more praise for the animation & music, wondering how that assassin got behind that initial NERV security guard to stab him, and just general disgruntlement at Amanda Winn-Lee's butchering of the dub.

Shinji's saved by Misato, Asuka is put in unit 02, and then we get the start of my favorite, insane, over the top part of AIR- Asuka's battle. Fitting to the series, it starts very subtly, you don't even notice anything at first until, as the view slowly zooms in on Asuka in the entry plug, you begin to make out what she's saying, "I don't want to die", a complete 180 in how she felt earlier, showing that at this point, Asuka is really the one acting on pure instinct, not Shinji. Somehow, Kyoko's soul is able to reach out and communicate with Asuka through the Evangelion, causing Asuka to understand the truth. The immensely powerful, and awesome track, False Regeneration kicks in as Unit 02 is Awakened and just fucks shit up in one of my favorite animated sequences of all time. It's always so incredible to see it use the ship it was under to shield incoming missile fire and then THROW THE ENTIRE FUCKING SHIP AT THE TANKS. God this scene is rad as fuck, and it's not even the best part of AIR yet.

Misato is shot taking Shinji to Unit 01, but holds on just long enough to give him all the strength she can to continue on and finish this fight without her. Symbolically, she passes on her cross to Shinji, mirroring her father's sacrifice for her, and coming to understand that she was never truly there for him until now. In one final last ditch effort, she appeals to his Id, and helps him in the only way she can. I can only imagine the reactions in theatres when this scene played. Disgust from some, cheering from others, crying from others still, I continue to believe that I will never have truly seen this film until I watch a screening in a real theatre with a real audience. Misato shoves Shinji into the elevator, in a "go for it! I believe in you!" fashion, only to finally fall over from blood loss. She gets exploded into two bits because the area they were in was scheduled for demolition by SEELE forces, but not before we see the very first Quantum Rei appear since the one in the very first episode. Again, first-time viewers must've lost it here.

Then comes the absolute best part of AIR, Asuka's fight against the Eva Series. Everything about this sequence is fucking incredible, the music, the partially rotoscoped animation, the camera angles, the art, it's all incredible. Not to mention, the Eva Series themselves are my favorite Evangelion design in Neon Genesis' timeline, and in my opinion, the best designed. Their graceful wings and white armour gives an angelic appearance, and coupled with the uncanny, disgusting mouths and the gruesome mauling each one receives, perfectly juxtaposes each other. This juxtaposition comes into full force with the music, Beethoven's 'Air on the G string', which, while having a much different meaning now, is still just as powerful during the sequence itself, and is one of many things showing Anno's less obvious fan love of the classic Japanese film, Battle Royale.

Oh yeah also Ritsuko dies and Gendo says some shit that probably isn't important whateverOkay seriously now, Gendo's silent words are probably the most timeless part of this film. Because we will likely never know exactly what was said, the short clip of two or three frames over and over will forever cause audiences to wonder just what the hell Ikari said. This will continually be one of the things to bring people back to this film over and over.

Next up comes the most brutal part of AIR, even more than the infamous JSSDF raid. Asuka, unaware that the Eva Series have S^2 engines, has just been wounding them instead of taking out the cores. The realization of why Misato didn't tell her this comes with even more of a restricting feeling- she just didn't have time to find out before the MAGI takeover started. Because of this misinformation, Asuka's life is taken in the most horrific, violent death in all of Evangelion. I still feel sick watching those damn harpies flock down onto Unit 02 like crows, and rip her apart. The absolute worst parts are seeing her being physically lifted up by her internal organs being pulled upwards, and then snapping and falling back to earth, the armorless face, impaled by the faux Lance of Longinus when she goes berserk, and seeing her empty chestplate armor as she tries to reach upwards- only to be brought to a sudden end. Not seeing exactly what happens to poor Nigoki and Asuka is something that really adds to the horror. I'm a firm believer that implied violence is much worse than explicitly shown violence, because the human mind has a tendency to see the worst possible outcomes.

Yui finally gets off her ass and uses Unit 01 to clear a path through the hardened bakelite to allow Shinji inside. Shinji now knows all about the Evangelions and the contact experiments thanks to the information given to him by Misato, so Unit 01 immediately Awakens with much less fanfare than good old Nigoki (godresthersoul), but this time, we see enormous wings of light split from the crucifix explosion, pretty much confirming that whereas Units 00 and 02 were cloned from Lilith, Shogoki itself was cloned directly from Adam. It uses these wings of light to lift into the air, and only a few hundred feet above headquarters, looks up to receive one of the final blows to his psyche, the decimated remains of Unit 02, torn apart, each piece being chewed on by one of the Eva Series. We get that iconic Shinji scream, and AIR comes to an end.

AIR has my second favorite action scene behind the Zeruel fight, and is overall far more brutal than anything seen in Neon Genesis. The exposition and dialogue have led to some confusion on everything happening, but I Need You's insane psychobabble is even worse for some people (but not for me because I'm a psychology nut harumph harumph I'm so cool)

26^1 I Need You

After a strangely existential credits sequence, we hop straight into I Need You. No Death and Rebirth style intermission this time, bitch, we jumpin right back into this nightmare fuel trash fire trainwreck. Shinji continues losing his fuckin shit, and feeling this immense pain projected through the Evangelion, Rei decides with full finality that she will not be Gendo's puppet. She takes his hand along with Adam, regrowing her own arm. She levitates upward directly in front of Lilith, and states, "I'm home", and is silently welcomed by her original body, now deformed beyond recognition. What a ton of people don't realize is that this directly mirrors episode 2, when Shinji is told by Misato that her home is now his. He steps across the threshold and states "I'm home", and Misato replies joyously, "Welcome home!"

Lilith's hands rip from her cross as she splashes down into the pool of her own blood below. Her mask falls off as her form begins changing into that of Ayanami's. In order to speak to Shinji directly and give him control of what happens next, she seeks him out by growing to even larger size. Lilith's alien face in the form of Ayanami's causes Shinji to finally, completely break. He rips at the controls animalistically in a vain attempt to get the fuck out of dodge, and Lilith uses Adam to change her form to reflect the face of Kaworu Nagisa. This puts Shinji's shattered psyche at ease, and we dive back into that broken little mind of his one last time.

The park was always weird to me. I don't even mean the dolls, or Misato being referred to as, 'Mama' by them, just, the general layout was what really tripped me up. It always seemed so strange and parallel- UNTIL I took an anatomy class in Junior year of high school. I interpret the park as a very loose layout of Yui's body. To the north, are two hills next to each other and the sun behind them, Yui's breasts, and her head looking down. The swing set is her heart, tied to Shinji's emotions, notice how it swings faster and slower based on Shinji's reactions to things. The sandbox is the womb, and the segmented stage is the birth canal, representing freedom from the park, freedom from the womb, independence. Because Shinji was never close to his mother while conscious, and the memories of her he did have were repressed, he was never able to develop and grow properly. He still acts like a child, and is unable to escape psychological childhood because of his lack of a parental figure.

From here we go to Shinji's more external mind, his conscious, recent memories. I believe Rei, Misato, and Asuka represent his Freudian Super Ego, Ego, and Id respectively. In speaking to them, he's looking inside his own subconscious mind. The discussion about hiding the truth is NOT about these characters themselves hiding their truths from him, but instead, his own mind hiding these memories of his mother from him, in particular, her contact experiment. (I figured this out while writing this, mind blown).

After this, we see Shinji in Asuka in Misato's dining room, in a near fully rotoscoped scene mirroring the kissing scene from episode 15 or 16, I don't remember. Notice how as the film goes on, there's more and more rotoscoping in the animation until the entire film becomes live action during the second stage of Instrumentality. Shinji appeals to his Id, his instincts, in the form of Asuka. He decides that things have gone to shit because he hesitated so much, and he blames that on his Ego. He believes that if he can become more Id driven, like Asuka, he might be able to be worth something in his own mind. Asuka refuses to help him, now representing humanity and others. Fed up and sick of everything, Shinji decides it's time for individuality, and the pain it causes, to end. He violently chokes Asuka, so forcefully he lifts her up from the ground. We see a few crayon drawings, the same ones seen during Asuka's mind invasion. Shit finally, completely hits the fan, as Lilith, in order to grant Shinji's wish, lifts up the Black Moon and transforms into an enormous Anti AT field, enveloping the earth and causing all life on the planet, INCLUDING ADAMS (because Lilith and Adam are now one) biological material to return to the primordial soup, LCL. All souls join together, now freed from their bodies, and fill LilithAdam's body. The Eva Series fuses with Rei, because reasons, and LilithAdam takes Unit 01 and Shinji into her form along with the rest of earth's souls.

At first, everyone is terrified and confused by Instrumentality. Negative emotions run rampant, shown by the dialogue and audio at the end of the Komm Susser Tod sequence. This is similar to a newborn, acting purely on Id and instinct. Eventually, the souls calm down, and begin to understand each other. As ideals and minds are shared infinitely, Shinji glances into an alternate universe where he doesn't exist.

This is where the canonicity of the alternate live action sequence comes into question. In most cases, cut scenes either never happened, or happened off screen, but this is an exception. Certainly, the sequence of an adult Asuka living with Toji and being neighbors with Misato happened in this alternate universe, but seeing Rei during the final version of the scene is super strange, because if Shinji was never born, Yui must've been much different. She may have never proposed the expedition to the South Pole, the entirety of Neon Genesis would never have happened. For now though, I'll just leave this at a ehhhh. Anyways, Shinji becomes opposed of this world where he doesn't exist, causing LilithAdam's neck to rip open and send blood red LCL rocketing to the edge of the atmosphere and onto the moon.

After a conversation with Lilith and Adam, taking on the forms of Rei and Kaworu, Shinji decides that he would rather feel the real pain of individuality instead of the fake joy of instrumentality. LilithAdam's body breaks down and falls to earth to continue decomposing, releasing the world's souls back to it. Shinji speaks to Yui's soul in Unit 01's core as he begins to return to human form. He understands that this isn't an ending, but he doesn't mind. He's come to understand that pain is important to life. Without pain, what is joy? He is finally able to properly say goodbye to his mother, as his soul returns to earth, and he is reborn in a new body a second time.

Time passes. Shinji has made his way to shore from the sea of LCL, and stares blankly up at the sky. He's likely getting used to being in a Lilin-Adams hybrid body. Remember when I emphasized that Adams life was broken down as well as Lilin? I believe that since everything including the remains of Angels dissolved into the same sea of LCL, that everything that decided to return to physical form was a fusion of Lilin and Adams. Anyways, Asuka rematerializes next to Shinji, and a final Quantum Rei appears, Lilith's way of showing that she has always been there, and always will be there.

To make sure this isn't just another instrumentality-fueled hallucination, Shinji climbs onto Asuka, and begins to strangle her. She reaches up and touches his face in the same way Yui did, and Shinji realizes that it's over. It's all over, there's no more Angels, Evas, NERV, SEELE, separation or fighting, everything causing his pain is gone now. But that doesn't make this a perfect world. This causes Shinji to break down in tears of joy. Asuka looks down at this weakness, and expresses her disgust.

TL;DR, sorry for the massive wall of text, this got way out of hand. All in all, I think I prefer I Need You just that little bit more. Both are fantastic and revolutionary, AIR is great for action and animation, I Need You is great for creative animation concepts and psychological exploration, but I feel that both are damn near perfect.

I've reached a point where I just generally don't give a fuck anymore. In a good way.

I really think of the movie as one thing, but if I had to decide...I'd have to go with dat sweet Magokoro o, kimi ni.Best thing ever put to film.

Shinji: "Sooner or later I'll be betrayed... And they'll leave me. Still... I want to meet them again, because I believe my feelings at that time were real."Ryuko: "I'm gonna knock ya on your asses!"-Asuka: THINK IN GERMAN!!! -Shinji: Öh... Baumkuchen...Hayashida: "As game developers, our work is special. All of us here can put smiles on very many people's faces with our work.""In any case, it (Kill la Kill) is the greatest work of fiction ever written and should be taught in schools." -Squigsquasher~('.'~) (~'.')~ Dancin Kirby

First half of EOE, Episode 25', Air/Love is Destructive. The entire sequence of Asuka battling the MP Evangelions with Bach's Air playing in the background is one of the most POWERFUL scenes in FILM ever and by far the most emotional moment in the entire movie (yes, more so when Shinji purges the planet). More powerful/emotional is how the song/scene ends with Ritsuko's death, finally having been "defeated" after everything she's been through. Ritz was also the highlight of this entire sequence as well.

@ReiIV:You are correct about those being some of the best scenes put to film.That makes it so hard to decide, and honestly they play off each other so much I can't think of the two halves as competing things, can't really separate them in my mind.If I have to decide though, like I said I'd have to go with the second half, because I believe it actually expanded my mind watching that, damn is it crazy watching it as a teen.

Shinji: "Sooner or later I'll be betrayed... And they'll leave me. Still... I want to meet them again, because I believe my feelings at that time were real."Ryuko: "I'm gonna knock ya on your asses!"-Asuka: THINK IN GERMAN!!! -Shinji: Öh... Baumkuchen...Hayashida: "As game developers, our work is special. All of us here can put smiles on very many people's faces with our work.""In any case, it (Kill la Kill) is the greatest work of fiction ever written and should be taught in schools." -Squigsquasher~('.'~) (~'.')~ Dancin Kirby

I know practically all of 26' by heart, whereas I haven't troubled myself nearly as much with 25'. First half has some indispensable stuff, but I just don't find the military invasion stuff anywhere near as interesting as the cosmic psychedelia it's replaced with.

25' great set up, seeing Shinji fall to his lowest lows is awesome. Violence porn, god help me I love it. everyone who needs to is killed off is neatly. Great pacing with the action. actual pacing action scenes is almost a lost art in Hollywood today so I give credit to old movies that do it.

26' nice 2001 a space odyssey like segment. Shinji's internal monologue and thoughts leading up to third impact are great the peak of his self loathing and separation from other. Some of the best lines in the series. The visuals are stunning to this day. I always felt his turn around at the end was kind of rushed though and it didn't live up to his fall at the start. I also felt that the scene on the beach at the end while super famous/infamous did nothing for me. I would have ended it when Shinji said good bye to Yui. Saying he didn't expect living to be easy but he wanted to try was a stronger message to me.

Great pacing with the action. actual pacing action scenes is almost a lost art in Hollywood today so I give credit to old movies that do it.

Agree, one of the things I love so much about 25'.

I always felt his turn around at the end was kind of rushed though and it didn't live up to his fall at the start.

With this I'm the opposite haha.Have never thought of it this way.I guess the turnaround really is fast, but I think that's how it happens with sudden revelations. I think what defines it is the things that are said and how simple but true they are.Defending it a little...because it's my favourite scene in anything ever. :sweatdrop: (<---the smilies don't work I think)

I also felt that the scene on the beach at the end while super famous/infamous did nothing for me. I would have ended it when Shinji said good bye to Yui. Saying he didn't expect living to be easy but he wanted to try was a stronger message to me.

I think that message still holds true at the end, but Anno will never tie things up neatly. There is always afterwards. In a sense it's only the beginning for Shinji facing his life, and the audience is also left to think sbout the film and apply whst they've learned.This is actually pretty constant with Anno, even Shin Godzilla did it.My initial confusion at the scene was strong lol, but there's a lot to unpack, it made me curious.

Shinji: "Sooner or later I'll be betrayed... And they'll leave me. Still... I want to meet them again, because I believe my feelings at that time were real."Ryuko: "I'm gonna knock ya on your asses!"-Asuka: THINK IN GERMAN!!! -Shinji: Öh... Baumkuchen...Hayashida: "As game developers, our work is special. All of us here can put smiles on very many people's faces with our work.""In any case, it (Kill la Kill) is the greatest work of fiction ever written and should be taught in schools." -Squigsquasher~('.'~) (~'.')~ Dancin Kirby

kuribo-04 wrote:I think that message still holds true at the end, but Anno will never tie things up neatly. There is always afterwards. In a sense it's only the beginning for Shinji facing his life, and the audience is also left to think sbout the film and apply whst they've learned.This is actually pretty constant with Anno, even Shin Godzilla did it.My initial confusion at the scene was strong lol, but there's a lot to unpack, it made me curious.

This is one of my favorite film techniques and narrative techniques in general, leaving things open and ambiguous for the viewer to decide for themselves, or better yet, having there be one answer but never providing it. The End of Evangelion demonstrates this perfectly with Gendo's last words to Ritsuko, and the interpretation of the viewer as to what happened after the ending, respectively. This way of leaving things unanswered causes viewers to come back over and over to try to find their own answers, and adds a layer of timelessness to the story.

I've reached a point where I just generally don't give a fuck anymore. In a good way.

I agree.And btw, the Spanish dub adds that line.You hear what Gendo says.I don't remember what they came up with, but yeah..:/

Shinji: "Sooner or later I'll be betrayed... And they'll leave me. Still... I want to meet them again, because I believe my feelings at that time were real."Ryuko: "I'm gonna knock ya on your asses!"-Asuka: THINK IN GERMAN!!! -Shinji: Öh... Baumkuchen...Hayashida: "As game developers, our work is special. All of us here can put smiles on very many people's faces with our work.""In any case, it (Kill la Kill) is the greatest work of fiction ever written and should be taught in schools." -Squigsquasher~('.'~) (~'.')~ Dancin Kirby

I was refering to the dub rom Spain actually, but yeah, this happens everywhere lol.

Shinji: "Sooner or later I'll be betrayed... And they'll leave me. Still... I want to meet them again, because I believe my feelings at that time were real."Ryuko: "I'm gonna knock ya on your asses!"-Asuka: THINK IN GERMAN!!! -Shinji: Öh... Baumkuchen...Hayashida: "As game developers, our work is special. All of us here can put smiles on very many people's faces with our work.""In any case, it (Kill la Kill) is the greatest work of fiction ever written and should be taught in schools." -Squigsquasher~('.'~) (~'.')~ Dancin Kirby

I would have to say the first half mostly because of the JSSDF raid on NERV HQ sequence which I feel is a masterfully animated and choreographed battle in both the carnage as well as the sheer hysteria happening in the minds of the unprepared staff of NERV dealing with a trained army. Second half is where everything goes way too deep that even to this day repeated viewings fail to open Pandora's box of understanding.

And so Javert, you see it's true. This man bears no more guilt than you! Who am I? TWO-FOUR-SIX-OH-OOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!! - Jean Valjean (Les Miserables)

Gus Hanson wrote:I would have to say the first half mostly because of the JSSDF raid on NERV HQ sequence which I feel is a masterfully animated and choreographed battle in both the carnage as well as the sheer hysteria happening in the minds of the unprepared staff of NERV dealing with a trained army. Second half is where everything goes way too deep that even to this day repeated viewings fail to open Pandora's box of understanding.

It took me like 5 or 6 viewings and a ton of research to even sort of get what goes on in I Need You, but even without full understanding, I personally think the animation and message of I Need You surpasses the action and animation of AIR, but that's just me.

I've reached a point where I just generally don't give a fuck anymore. In a good way.

WunderBah wrote:First half obviously being the beginning all the way to the end of the MP Eva vs Asuka, with the second half going from Pre-instrumentality to the final scene of thr movie.

For me, while both were absolutely stellar, i lean a tiny bit closer to the second half due to third impact + Komm susser tod being one of my all time favorite moments out of any film to date. The lead up to it & the final scene's ambiguity also sealed the deal for me.

Ah, the second. It sold Evangelion to me enough to watch it. Lilith looked absolutely cool and especially the giant crucifix and the Eva in the Sky.

I'll have to go with the first one, the siege on NERV HQ is simply one of the most brilliantly executed and thrilling depictions of a modern day losing battle. On top of everything that goes on with the Evas

Why don't you save the Princess next time instead of being such a baby? She would love it and maybe you could get a sweet kiss. ~ sadly not Mari in Q (Joseki)